http://www.jewishworldreview.com --
I CLICKED ON THE TV the other night just in time to hear Dick Morris, former
Clinton strategist and current Fox News consultant, cite a poll that claimed 30% of the country
to be Democrat, 30% of the country to be Republican, and the remaining 40% or so to be
independents or something else and therefore capable of being swayed to vote either way in the
general election.

Now I don’t have much confidence in polls, (come to think of it I don’t have much
confidence in Dick Morris, either) but let’s just say for the sake of argument (and this
column) that Morris’ percentages are close to being accurate. Those numbers certainly make it
sound as if the presidential contest is completely fair and balanced.

One would assume, with both major political parties seemingly equal, all each side
needs to do is make their strongest case to the American voters, come out fighting, and may the
best platform win in November -- right? Wrong. Wrong because things are not equal at all --
and I’ll give you the reason in two words: academia and the media.

Our schools and mainstream media are the two primary sources of information, truth,
ideas and enlightenment for the majority of Americans. If the people working within those two
sources were 30% Democrat, 30% Republican, and 40% independent, then everything would be fine.
But, (and this is a big but) here’s the problem -- both of these primary sources of information
are overwhelmingly comprised of liberal Democrats.

Is this a bad thing? It’s not if you happen to be a liberal Democrat. For the other
70% of the population, however, it’s (if you’ll pardon the obvious pun) not right.

Our colleges and universities are made up mostly of liberal thinking instructors and
administrators, just as liberal entertainers, journalists, and executives seem to predominate
the entertainment and news profession.

Could anyone who has gone through the American educational system of the last thirty
years or so, honesty deny that they were exposed more often to left-of-center ideas and values
than to moderate or conservative thinking?

Most major newspapers tend to lean towards the liberal side, as do the weekly
newsmagazines. And people who rely solely on network television for their news, are in danger
of getting a permanent crick in the left side of their neck. It is true that talk radio is
inclined to be mostly conservative, but how many people in our country listen to talk radio as
compared to people who watch mainstream television and read the major newspapers or
newsmagazines?

How in the world did it happen that one ideology has so completely dominated the flow
of information to the American people? There are several theories on this. The first being
the famous “vast left-wing conspiracy” theory. (And I hasten to add that this is just a
theory, mind you -- we have no hard evidence to support it. However, for the courageous
reporter willing to investigate it, the truth will come out.) This is the theory that holds
that left-wing educators and journalists are being grown in test tubes somewhere out in the
Nevada desert (which would also explain why so many television news anchors tend to look
alike).

A variation on this premise supposes that Walt Disney Imagineers have been, for several
decades, laboring in an abandoned airplane hanger on the former site of the Lockheed
“Skunkworks” in Burbank turning out Audio-Animatronic liberal robots (which would certainly
explain Al Gore).

I don’t believe in anything quite so insidious. My personal theory is simple -- that
people in these industries think it’s “hipper” to be a liberal Democrat than to be a
conservative Republican, and for many people (especially in schools and in show business) it’s
very important to be thought of as being “hip.” It’s that same desire to be “with it” that
motivates people to get tattooed, have their body parts pierced, eat tofu and rice cakes, speak
in insipid clichés like, “for the children,” and “move on” and grow those silly little
goatee/mustache things around their mouths.

There are undoubtedly other, more pragmatic reasons for the preponderance of liberalism
in the academic and media worlds -- however, I’ll leave those for people who really analyze
this stuff for a living to explain.

In a perfect world our schools would be politically impartial institutions of higher
learning -- teaching truth, ethics, and the American way right alongside reading, writing and
arithmetic. Students would be encouraged to think for themselves and to be responsible for
their own actions (what a concept!). Facts would be given without prejudice or personal
opinion, and political correctness would take a back seat to veracity.

In that idealistic situation, the mainstream press would be unbiased, straight-forward
fact finders. High-principled journalists digging for the truth and reporting the news without
private agenda or social commentary -- allowing the chips to fall as they may and giving people
the chance to make up their own minds.

Unfortunately, we still inhabit the world of the imperfect -- no matter what the
hairstyles of Dan and Tom and Peter might suggest. While it’s possible to get balance in the
news, you’ve really got to work at it -- searching out sometimes hard to find conservative
political publications to offset all those on the left ain’t easy. Most people can’t or won’t
take the time to do it. They’ll simply click on the television and once again feel that
annoying little crick in the left side of their
necks.

JWR contributor Greg Crosby, former creative head for Walt Disney publications, has written
thousands of comics, hundreds of children's books, dozens of essays, and a
letter to his congressman. You may contact him by clicking here.